arnoldx11

Thank you! Looking back it certainly seems like I am over-analysing! I think I was just so used to messaging her constantly, and also receiving apologies from her if she didn’t message back, that I automatically took it to be a bad sign if she didn’t reply and read too much into it. It’s certainly something I wouldn’t want to happen again and shows that the relationship was too intense and she was right to pull back. The day before her birthday was the first day we hadn’t contacted each other since we met.

The breakdown in communication, the fact that she preferred to spend time with her co-workers instead of me, coupled with the message she finally did send me, caused me to think that she just wasn’t interested in spending time with me romantically or socially, which wasn’t the case. Looking back now I can see how much I over-reacted and didn’t see things clearly. I was very confused about it as it didn’t really make any sense (I was her closest friend after all), but I honestly had the impression she was just finished with me.

I also feel very foolish and guilty that I abandoned her when she needed a friend, and put myself through a torturous few weeks thinking about her and what went wrong, when I could have been spending time with her and continuing to care for her the way she needed me to. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d just taken everything with good grace. It doesn’t matter because I simply wasn’t able to see things clearly then, all I can do is learn from it. I do forgive her and I should have had more faith in her. I have made this clear to her. The other day I told her it took me time to realise that I had been right about her and she was still the same person I fell in love with. I hope she takes this the way it’s intended.

I have apologised sincerely and tried my best to make things right (thanks to your advice and help!). I’ve also addressed and apologised for the things I feel I did wrong in the relationship too. If it turns out she’s been thinking the same things, then I guess that’s a start. I don’t know if any good can come of the fact that I didn’t contact her for weeks, I feel terrible about it. I know she was hurt by the way I acted, but I hope I haven’t completely ruined any chance of reconciling with her. It’s such a confusing situation, I thought she had simply dumped me, but I’m not sure what you would call what I did!

I am looking forward to hearing from her and I’m hoping we can take things from there. She is very busy, she’s taken on some new students to coach (so have I) and she’s already started studying for her course (which begins in June). I will do whatever it takes to make things right with her. Thank you for your objective and impartial view, I really appreciate it. No more dwelling on the past for me!

Everything went well today! She arrived fairly late in the morning time so we didn’t have time to talk properly before the coaching started. I told her I was hoping to chat with her but I also didn’t want to distract her, maybe we could get lunch later and she said sure.

The morning session went well but when lunch came around I couldn’t find her. I thought she might have been having second thoughts and that I had put her on the spot, but actually she was sitting in the restaurant behind a wall so I never saw her! She messaged me then and I joined her. We had a nice chat and went out for a coffee. We were in a rush though so I didn’t get to have the chat with her then, but we caught up with each other and it was lovely.

Then at the end of the day I walked her back to her tram stop. It was snowing (which is pretty unseasonable!) and she made several references to how alone she has been recently. She told me that her husband has moved to the States and has met a new girl that he sent her pictures of. This upset her, but she understood that he just wanted to show her that he’s happy. She mentioned that he had left her and that prompted me to say again that I wanted to chat to her but hadn’t expected to be walking around in the snow and maybe we could step inside somewhere. Instead she said we could walk and talk. I warned her that it might take a minute for me to explain everything and asked her just to please bear with me. She listened quietly.

I told her I wanted to apologise properly for the way that I acted and the things that I said on the week of her birthday. I said things that were untrue and hurtful, and I didn’t really mean them or believe them myself. I couldn’t believe I let her think for even a second that it was her fault. When I took my own ego out of it I realised that I had no reason to feel hurt. That’s when I sent her that message. All I meant by saying I was “over it and I’d moved on” was that I realised I had no right to feel hurt and I couldn’t let her go on feeling guilty any longer.

I immediately regretted sending the message. I thought about writing to her several times since, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that not only did I behave terribly then, I also got so many things wrong while we were together.

I lied to my parents about the extent of our relationship and about staying over with her. At the time I thought it was my problem and my way of dealing with it and she didn’t need to worry about it. But now I understand why she hadn’t felt good about it and I should have listened to her. I realised how foolish I was because I recently told my parents that we were in love and that I had stayed over with her and they were understanding and supportive (I did tell my mother today and she was hurt that I had lied about it, but she understood why I felt I couldn’t confide in her and my father).

This issue with my parents also caused me to break my word to her on Christmas and lose her trust. She said right from the beginning that she just wanted to spend time with me on Christmas. I told her I could, but because I hadn’t been honest with my parents, they couldn’t understand why I wanted to see her so much, said that it was too intense a friendship, and said I needed to be at home with my family on Christmas. I left it far too late to say this to them (afternoon of Christmas Eve), and that meant I only told her late afternoon on Christmas Eve when it was already too late, and she would be spending Christmas alone in her brother’s with no way of getting home.

I felt terrible about this and tried to make it up to her the following day by surprising her at home, but when I did, we ended up sleeping together and she felt I had just come over for that, when that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t understand why she believed that was the reason then, but now I realise because I had broken my word to her on Christmas, I had lost her trust, and things weren’t the same after that.

I apologised for losing her trust and causing her hurt. She told me that she couldn’t believe the message I sent her about moving on and she even deleted her WhatsApp afterwards! She said I didn’t get it, that she just wanted a friend. She couldn’t believe I had left her alone. She said she felt she hadn’t said anything too bad, and I agreed, but said that because she hadn’t replied to my messages earlier in the week, I took it the wrong way. I realised now that she just wasn’t sure how to say it to me without hurting me or wasn’t sure in general. It was also because things were too intense and I had been so used to talking to her all of the time. She agreed that we had rushed things and it was too intense.

I said that I had always told her I would be her friend no matter what, that she never had to worry about hurting me, but when it finally came to it, I let her down. She sort of nodded agreement.

She said she needed time to process it all but she would talk to me about it. She asked (laughing) how long it took me to finally say all of this and I admitted it had been at least a month. She laughed and said (jokingly!) she would take a month too and I said not to worry, she could take as long as she needed. I realised I had been an idiot and I was sorry for hurting her. I told her that it took me time to realise that I had been right about her the whole time, that she’s still the person I fell in love with and she hasn’t changed.

She definitely appreciated me telling her all of this. We even laughed a bit, and I told her about how I was going to send her a letter but talked myself out of it. She laughed and said she prefers that I told her in person, because now she can just process it, whereas if I had sent her a letter she would have kept re-reading it and taking different meanings from it every time.

I gave her the birthday present I had for her (the book that was signed, it was still in bubble-wrap because I had been planning to post it to her) and apologised for the lateness. I also showed her the concert tickets that I had planned to send her too. She laughed and said it was too late now, and I said I was sorry I hadn’t sent them but didn’t want her to feel like she had to go with me or feel under obligation to me. She thanked me for the book, I think she appreciated it.

We hugged goodbye, and she thanked me for talking to her about this and that it was good to talk. I told her we could talk any time. And that was it!

I cried the entire way home on the bus. I’m still not exactly sure why I was so emotional, probably a mix of reasons. It felt great to finally tell her how I had been feeling and to try to make things right with her. But also I feel so guilty and angry with myself for hurting her the way I did. I had no idea of the effect that I had on her. I’ve spent a month thinking of nothing but her and her well-being, and wondering how she is and how I could make things right with her, when I could have just stayed friends with her and continued to care for her in a way that might actually have helped her.

I care about her more than anyone I’ve ever met. I feel like if I can make her happy, as a friend or a lover, I will be happy. I am happy in general and life is good. I told her when we were together and I was getting the impression that she wasn’t happy, that she needed to tell me if her feelings changed about me, that it wasn’t good for me to keep loving someone if they weren’t in love with me. Now I feel like I can’t help it anyway, I love her and that’s it.

Today was so nice, it was like we were just two close friends catching up, even before I apologised to her. She’s a wonderful person. I only hope I can learn from everything that happened and do right by her. She’s had such an unfortunate life and she deserves so much better. She’s shown me the kind of person I want to be.

I know I keep saying this, but thank you so much for all of your advice, your patience and all of your help. I don’t know if I ever would have made sense of any of this it hadn’t been for you! I feel like I’ve taken the right first step in making this up to her, and I have you to thank for it.

Thank you, it’s a lot to say, but I will try to keep it fairly brief. Main thing is to be there early and ready to talk to her, and if she’s busy or if we don’t have time, I’ll just ask to speak to her during lunch or after we’re finished. I’m conscious of distracting her when we both have a job to do, but hopefully she won’t mind! She messaged me again today and I sent her some material for her to use tomorrow, and she said she was ever so grateful for it. Feeling good about talking to her tomorrow, but I’m also prepared to wait for the right moment!

I haven’t spoken to my parents yet…I wanted to catch them both together but it hasn’t been possible for the past few days. They know we’ve been messaging and that I plan to ask her to lunch tomorrow. I will speak to them. I would feel better having spoken to them before tomorrow, but they do know we were in love, and I can say with a clear conscience that they were much more understanding when I told them that.

Thank you again for all of your help. I really don’t know what I would have done without it! Hope I can try to make things right tomorrow!

Yes, I agree! My first impression of her was that she’s a wonderful person and that’s why I fell in love with her. And after weeks of not talking I still can’t imagine someone I’d rather be with. It’s just that in the few days before we broke up, she had been brushing me off and didn’t want to engage in conversation, and I felt very hurt that she was ignoring my messages since we were so used to talking all of the time. I understand now that it was probably because she simply didn’t know how to tell me without hurting me.

The present I had got her for her birthday was very special, it was a book of mine that I got signed by her favourite author who plays for my team in England. She said it was even more special seeing as it was something I owned (she never wanted expensive presents). In light of this, when she said she wanted to spend her birthday with people from work, I was very hurt. I took it well, all I said then was that I wanted to treat her to dinner/drinks if she’d let me, and give her the present, and it didn’t have to be on her birthday itself, but she never replied. Then when I asked her again the next day she ignored me too.

I spoke to my best friend about it and he said it sounded like she was “done” with me. So I asked her to tell me how she was feeling, and when she told me that she was fine but felt like she’d made a mistake saying she loved me, felt weak for getting involved with me so soon after her marriage, and just assumed that we’d still be friends, I took that to mean that I had helped her get over her marriage and was being tossed aside. That’s why I reacted the way I did.

I now see that the relationship being so intense to begin with was the problem. I also read back over some of the messages we had exchanged, and she said right from the beginning that all she wanted for Christmas was to spend time with me. I broke her trust when I told her only on Christmas Eve that I couldn’t see her, when I had said I hoped I would be able to. The reason I couldn’t was because I hadn’t been honest with my parents about how we felt about each other. They thought we were just friends, and that we had already been spending so much time with each other, I should pull back, and that Christmas was family time. They may still have said that I needed to be home on Christmas Day, but they would have also understood why I really wanted to see her if they’d known we were in love.

I felt so guilty all day Christmas Day and I was so worried about her. I tried to make it up to her the following day by surprising her at her house with coffee and a meal, but when we ended up sleeping together, she felt I had only come over for that, even though she had initiated it. I couldn’t believe she had suggested that as I thought she knew I wasn’t like that. I should have made more allowances for her emotional state. I apologised sincerely and reassured her, and I thought we patched things up well after that, but it was never the same and I really feel that was a turning point for us. I don’t know if something else would have derailed everything, but I think I need to mention this to her as well and apologise for that too.

I had always told her she never had to worry about hurting me, and that she never had to apologise to me for how she felt. I said I understood she was going through such a difficult time and I admired her strength and courage. I even said that if she decided we should just be friends, all she needed to do was talk to me about it first and I would still be happy to support her, all I wanted to do was spend time with her. I truly meant every word I said and believed it in theory, but when it came to that point, I feel like I let her down.

The night after I sent her that final text I lay down and cried for over half an hour. I’ve never done that before in my life over anything. I knew it didn’t feel right and there was so much I had left unsaid. So I wrote her a letter a couple of weeks later, and I was going to send it to her along with the birthday present and some concert tickets I had got for us (they were a combined Christmas/Birthday/Valentine’s gift that I ended up giving to a friend of mine). But I thought better of sending it. I didn’t want her to feel under obligation to me for the gifts. I didn’t want to send her the concert tickets in case she had no one to go with or felt obliged to ask me. I also didn’t want to upset her or dredge up all of those memories after saying goodbye and good luck. I still don’t know if I should have sent it or not.

You have basically told me exactly what I had been hoping to hear. Everyone I have spoken to has said that we rushed into things and that I was better off just leaving her be and moving on. I have felt the whole time that I handled things badly, but I couldn’t figure out exactly how to phrase it. I think I know what to say now. Thank you so much!

She actually messaged me tonight about Sunday asking me which group I wanted to take for the coaching. I’m just going to reply normally and be nice and just save the apology for Sunday. On Sunday, should I ask her to lunch first, or apologise first? Thank you so much again for your advice and your good wishes, you’ve no idea how much it has helped!

Thank you, I will tell them tonight. The only thing is, they will probably straight up ask me if I slept with her, as they may not believe I stayed over with her and nothing happened. She did say that she was just used to waking up beside someone, and I had a girlfriend before who I wasn’t sleeping with who also wanted me to stay over and sleep beside her (I never took her up on it and we broke up!), so I’ll mention that and hope they understand.

All I meant was that by the time the referendum is held, passes, and legislation is drawn up, she’ll probably have been separated from her husband for five years and will be able to get a divorce under the current laws anyway!

I guess I’m just worried that I’ve already messed up any chance of getting back with her by how I acted. I feel very confident in myself, I was happy with my life before I met her, and I’m happy with it again. I love my job, my hobbies are going well, and I love coaching. I know I’ll be in a good mood on Sunday from that and I’m sure I’ll feel confident talking to her. I am concerned about how the conversation will go, if she agrees to have lunch with me at all.

Should I just keep it casual and friendly, or should I use the opportunity to (briefly) address the elephant in the room and apologise for the way I acted and the things I said? Having thought about everything, I really want to let her know that I understand where she was coming from and that she was right in what she said, we did get off to a bad start, and I had no right to say she never loved me or let her think that it was all her fault.

I feel that before I discovered this site and received all of this advice, I sort of half-assed applied some of the principles mentioned here and complicated an already complex situation even further. For example, I already sort of sent her an “elephant in the room” style text, but only after a week of no contact, and then I didn’t contact her for four weeks after that until I saw her last weekend. I also ended the text by wishing her luck and implying I wouldn’t contact her again.

I guess I won’t know how to proceed until after I see her on Sunday, but I’m also not sure if I should bring up anything about our relationship when I talk to her, or how I should react if she brings something up. Maybe I should just play it cool either way and not get into details?

Not only is she trying to move on from me, she’s also still moving on from her marriage, and may not want a relationship at all. She did say I helped her get through her separation initially, and even thanked me for that, but she also decided to end things with me. I found out that she’s starting college in four months, which is great for her, she talked about doing it while we were together. I just want her to be happy, preferably happy with me of course, but mainly happy with herself! However, I know from reading the articles and emails that there will probably be a point where she really misses me, and I don’t want to miss that window of opportunity to build up trust and a connection with her again, but I know she needs to be ready too.

I guess having thought about everything so much, and feeling like I mostly understand what went wrong, I’m really keen to let her know this and that I would handle everything much better if we did get back together. Hopefully things will be clearer after Sunday and I can think about how to apply of the strategies and advice depending on how it goes? Thank you again for listening and advising me!

Thank you, that sounds like a good plan. I actually just had a bit of an epiphany about the reasons why we broke up last night. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before, in fact I didn’t even mention it in my first post here. I’d be interested to see what you think if you don’t mind?

As I said, we had agreed not to tell anyone that we were seeing each other, as most of our mutual acquaintances didn’t even know she was separated and we felt it might have an adverse effect on our reputations. The only people who knew I was her boyfriend were her landlord and landlady, and that was only so that I could stay over as a guest. She hadn’t told her parents (they live in another country and would be worried about her if they knew she had moved on so quickly). I had met her brother, but he just thought we were friends.

For my part, I still live at home with my parents as it doesn’t make financial sense for me to move out (price of housing is too high, even though I’m not badly off, and I work near home). I also told my parents we were just friends. They were adamant that I shouldn’t spend time with her when they found out she was married, and that I should give her space when she got separated. She said she needed a friend and I didn’t want to abandon her, so I felt the best thing to do was for me to not tell them the truth at first, and pretend I was spending time with other friends when I was seeing her.

When we got together, she met my father at that competition and I told my parents we were just spending time together as friends, even though I’m sure they knew it was more than that. She knew I was lying about the extent of our relationship to them. If they had known we were in love, I don’t how they would have reacted at the time. They are very traditional Catholics and I tend to avoid going into details about my love life with them, especially at first. So whenever I stayed over with her, I said I was staying at another friend’s house. I explained to her that I didn’t want them to get the wrong impression of her and that I would only tell them the full truth (i.e. that I was staying over with her) when we were officially together (as in being honest with everyone about it), whenever that may happen.

At first she seemed ok with this, but she actually told me when we spoke on New Year’s Eve that she wasn’t comfortable about it, and that it was giving her second thoughts about us being an official couple, as she didn’t think they would approve. I dismissed this and told her that they were my parents, it was my issue to deal with, I know them best, and that I was doing what I felt was right for both of us. I also reassured her that they would be totally supportive of us whenever we decided to tell everyone that we were a proper couple.

She literally said this was the one thing that was bothering her about me, and I didn’t take her seriously. Like I said, this only occurred to me last night. I think it may have been symptomatic of the problems with our relationship in general. I said before that she would message me maybe once a week saying that she was feeling down about herself, feeling hurt over the break-up of her marriage and having second thoughts about everything.

I would listen to her concerns, and I would always send her long, thoughtful responses. I would reassure her that her feelings would pass, that it was perfectly natural to feel that way, that she never needed to explain herself or apologise to me for how she was feeling. That I loved her and cared for her and she never need feel lonely even if I’m not physically beside her. And I would always try to think of some thoughtful gesture to show her how I felt. She invariably cheered up and thanked me for making her feel better.

I felt I was doing what was best for her and supporting her as best I could. However, the concerns and worries she had were totally legitimate, and I’m wondering now if I just belittled them and minimised their importance in an effort to make her feel better. Dismissing her genuine feeling of unease about me lying to my parents about us is a clear example of this, and I’m thinking that this may have been the main reason why she wanted to break up. I told her not to worry about this and that it was my problem and not hers. That is how I felt and I thought she accepted this. Looking at it from her point of view and from her emotional situation, I can understand now why she would feel upset by this and doubtful of our future together.

The fact that she even told me straight out this was something that didn’t sit well with her really makes me feel like I handled the situation very badly. I should have taken her seriously and tried harder to see it from her point of view. It would also explain why she suddenly became so despondent on Christmas, as I had told her the reason why I couldn’t come to see her was that my mother wanted me and the family to be home together on Christmas Eve/Day. Again this was something I thought was reasonable, but she said she felt like a “nuisance” in my life, and when I sent her a long message to assuage her fears and tell her how highly my family thought of her, she ignored it, when she would normally have thanked me for listening and cheering her up.

I always felt I listened to her and had her best interests at heart. Now I’m thinking that I did listen, but I didn’t really hear what she was saying. If this is the main reason I lost her, I think I could repair the damage, if I can let her know in the right way that I understand and can do everything so much better if we do reconcile. Maybe there were lots of other reasons too, but the fact that she mentioned this as being the one thing she didn’t like about me makes me feel like I really should have taken her opinion on board and done something about it, instead of sticking to my guns and saying her concerns were unfounded.

I appreciate this is another long message, and you have been so helpful already, but I really would appreciate your opinion on this! Thank you again!

Thank you. She made eye contact with me last night and we shared a smile and a “Hello”. She was taking photos of people around the tournament (it’s a hobby of hers) and she took a photo of me and tagged me in it on Facebook, so that was nice. She had breakfast alone both mornings and I didn’t see her hanging around at all last night, her room-mate was out but perhaps she just went to bed.

Today, I happened to be sitting near where she was going to be playing (without realising it) and she approached me and we had a brief chat.

It was pleasant and brief, I made a joke about my game that morning, she laughed and said that she had lost her game and had stopped caring about the tournament. She made some quip about “giving up on life”. She mentioned she was having lunch with a guy who plays on the same team as her (I’ve known him since we were kids too). I know they’re friends, but I wasn’t sure if she was testing me by mentioning that or if she was just making conversation. Either way I wasn’t phased and just continued the conversation. We talked briefly about the coaching we do together and that was all. She went to get her bus after her game finished but I hadn’t finished playing, so we passed by each other a few times but didn’t interact.

I will see her next Sunday and we’ll be working with different groups of kids in different rooms. She may want to get lunch with me or she might prefer to be by herself. Not sure if I should ask her to lunch. I don’t know if she’s over me or her marriage, or how long I should wait before trying to contact her online again. Maybe I should just see how next Sunday goes first? Thank you again for all of your advice and support! It really helps!

Thank you again! I will try to be objective and aware that I may be viewing things through rose-tinted glasses.

In my country, married couples do need to be separated/living apart for five years before they can get divorced! And I’m sorry, I wasn’t being deliberately vague, she’s just turned 24 and I’m 27.

What I meant about “being honest about our relationship to others” was that we need to be publicly together, and not lying to everyone and pretending we’re not together just to protect our reputations (she felt it would reflect badly on both of us if we were publicly a couple, when most of our mutual acquaintances didn’t even know she was no longer married!).

Anyway, I just arrived at the competition I mentioned, and she smiled and said hello to my father, while ignoring me completely. It’s possible she didn’t see me at all, but that’s probably still not the best start! I will still be perfectly nice to her if we do talk, but I don’t think I’ll approach her for a chat, just smile, say hello and nod if the opportunity arises. Thank you again for all your support and I will keep you posted!